


An Eye For An Eye

by Tor_Raptor



Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Cancer, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Avengers, Retinoblastoma, Surgery, crocodiles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28790319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tor_Raptor/pseuds/Tor_Raptor
Summary: Before Gravesen, Nick had two eyes. He lost one the first time he visited, and with it his peace of mind. At the same time, in the most literal sense of the word, he gained a new perspective.
Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925263
Comments: 96
Kudos: 38





	1. Glare

**Author's Note:**

> So…I know I said Thor was the only character in this universe who canonically has siblings, however someone more observant than I am pointed out that Bucky is referred to as the eldest of four in his museum exhibit in the Winter Soldier. Unfortunately, that information came after I'd already written his prequel and I didn't want to retcon three characters I knew nothing about into a story that I was already satisfied with. Besides, I wanted his story to focus more on his relationship with Steve and the other Howling Commandoes.
> 
> Upon expanding my definition of canon to include comics, as I did with Arno Stark, I discovered that none other than Nicholas J Fury is also the oldest of three. This I learned before I had a solid idea of how I wanted to write the course of his life. Introducing more characters automatically lends its way to more material, so in order to avoid Nick's prequel being a very short account of his first battle with cancer and the beginning of the second, I decided to bring them in. I rarely work with characters that I build completely from scratch, so it's going to be a bit of an adventure to write Jake and Dawn Fury. But I hope I did a good job making them realistic and that you'll accept them into GCU canon just as I have.

It started with a picture. Nick hated to let his mother take photos of him—thought it was a horrid waste of time—but every so often she weaseled her way into getting him to stand still long enough. And whatever Nick conceded to, his little brother Jake did too. "For the Christmas card," she'd argued, and he reluctantly agreed. He put his arm around Jake's shoulders like Mom insisted and smiled. Thinking they were off the hook, they ran back to the center of the playground while Mom drifted towards Mrs. Hargrove on the bench, still staring at the picture she'd taken. She offered the phone to her and the two of them both looked at it with furrowed brows.

Nick knew he wasn't that handsome. So what were they staring at? "Nick, come over here!" Mom called. With an exasperated sigh, he climbed down from the jungle gym and marched over to her. "Closer," she prompted. As soon as he was within reach, she grabbed him by the chin and tilted his head back and forth.

"What are you doing?" he asked while trying to squirm away. His efforts were futile—Mom had an iron grip.

"I'm trying to look at your eye. It looked weird in the picture."

"Maybe because I was glaring at you," he shot back.

"Don't be rude, Nicky," she chastised. He hated that nickname and she knew it, so it was her go-to when he said or did something to upset her.

"Sorry," he grumbled. "Can I go play now?"

"Look at this first." She showed him the picture and pointed out his left eye, where a small white glare was visible in his pupil.

"What about it?" He'd seen eyes turn red in photos, so he didn't see why this was such a big deal.

"Is it bothering you?" she asked.

"Not really," he said with a shrug. She looked at him sternly, as if checking for tells, but baby Dawn started crying and drew her attention away long enough for Nick to run back to Jake and Red.

"What did she want?" Jake asked.

"She said my eye looked weird in the picture," Nick explained.

"Does that mean she'll make us take another one?"

"I hope not."

"Me too. You're it!" he called. Nick tagged his brother and raced off across the playground. It had taken some convincing, but Mom had agreed to take them all the way to the good one in Queens. Jake decided to tear after Red, so Nick paused by the monkey bars to catch his breath. A blond girl a few years older than him stood on the platform on one side, about to climb across.

"Steve, are you watching?" she called. An older boy on the edge of the playground offered her a thumbs-up. Nick watched in awe as she seamlessly swung from one bar to the next, switching her grip from front to back as she went so she flipped with each step.

"Nice one!" the boy called. "Looks like you've finally got it mastered."

"Practice makes perfect," the girl quipped before climbing back up to go again.

Nick got so distracted by the girl on the bars that he didn't notice Red sneak up behind him and tap him on the shoulder. "You're it!" he called, dashing away. Knowing he'd likely never catch Red, Nick set off after Jake. The three of them played for another half an hour before their moms called them over because it was time to go home. They said goodbye to Red and Mrs. Hargrove and left the park. Nick caught Mom repeatedly looking at his eye as if waiting for the glare to reappear. By the time they got home, he was so fed up with her excessive attention that the next time she locked eyes with him he narrowed his and forcibly turned away. It was just a stupid little white spot, he didn't understand why she was freaking out about it. Maybe it meant he had superpowers or something.

~0~

Mom took him to an eye doctor both because of her irrational concern with the white glare in that one picture and because it was recommended kids get their vision checked before first grade so undiagnosed near or farsightedness didn't cause learning difficulties. Nick didn't like waiting rooms or doctors, but he tried not to act too grumpy or Mom would get mad at him.

The first thing they did was have him read letters off a chart at the end of a hallway. He didn't have any trouble the first time, but then they made him repeat the exercise with one eye covered. Nick covered his left eye first, and the chart looked much the same, if not even clearer. But then he covered his right eye and everything turned so hopelessly blurry it almost made him dizzy.

The doctor was pointing at a letter and Nick strained to make it out, squinting and even leaning forward to try and get it to focus, but nothing worked. Ultimately he resulted to guessing. When he uncovered his eye and glanced up at Mom, he knew he failed the test. But if he could see fine using both eyes, he didn't think it was that big a deal that one of them didn't work by itself.

The eye doctor used a whole bunch of weird lenses and lights to look in his eyes, and if the puzzled look on his face was anything to go by it seemed like he found something he didn't like. He called Mom back in and asked her to look through the lenses still pressed against Nick's face.

"See that mass in his left eye?"

"Yes," Mom said uneasily. "What is it?"

"I don't know. But I know it's definitely not normal. I want to refer you to an ophthalmologist. They'll know more than I do."

"Okay."

Nick did not like the sound of that. An abnormal mass in his eyes, and another doctor? He didn't know what that super long word meant, but it sounded scary. Even Mom looked scared, and she wasn't scared of anything.

"What's wrong with my eye?" he asked on the way home.

"We don't know yet. But we're going to find out."

Before bed that night, Nick stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and alternated covering each eye with his hand like he had at the doctor's office. His vision sharpened and blurred drastically with each switch, so he stopped before he grew dizzy. He tilted his head at different angles, trying to see the white glare from the picture, but it didn't appear. His eye looked completely normal, yet it couldn't see.

"What are you doing?" Jake asked from the bathroom doorway.

"Nothing," Nick replied. He stepped down from the stool in front of the sink and left, closing the door on his way out since Jake often forgot to do so when he used the bathroom. They might share a bedroom, but there were some things Nick didn't want to see.

~0~

Nick assumed this other doctor's appointment would be much like the first time, but he was quickly proven wrong. This time, they were putting him to sleep with medicine so they could look at his eye really well without hurting him or making him stay still that long. While he was asleep, they'd also do something called and MRI, which would take super clear pictures of his head and brain. First, they had to poke him in the arm to take blood. Though they told him not to, Nick watched the whole time because he thought it was cool. He didn't try to squirm away or even cry, which they commended him for. Nick had never seen Mom look so worried, so he didn't let it show how afraid he was. She held his hand until he fell asleep, and he clung to it tightly for as long as he could.

He woke up groggy and mildly sick to his stomach. But at least it was over. So he thought at that point.

"How are you feeling?" Mom asked.

"Okay," he answered.

"That's good."

"Can we go home soon?"

"Yes," she promised. The doctor who'd examined Nick's eye visited them not long after, and he brought with him a blonde woman in scrubs and a tall woman in a lab coat. The blonde woman stayed with him while the other two people invited his mom to join them in another room. Nick didn't see why this was a big deal, but Mom's face revealed near-panic. The kind woman introduced herself as Sharon and offered a few different games to play. Nick selected war, one of the only card games he actually knew how to play. He liked that the rules were clear and simple.

"Why'd they take my mom away to talk to her?" he asked as he won yet another hand by playing a nine on Sharon's five.

"They're having a boring, adult conversation right now. Once your mom knows what's going on, she'll tell you all the important parts, and the doctors will help if she wants them to."

"What _is_ going on? Why are they taking so long?"

"You mom will tell you once she knows. For now, all you have to worry about is how you're going to beat this," she said as she triumphantly played a king. Nick flipped over his next card to find it was an ace. He swept the cards into his own deck with a victorious grin. They played for maybe half an hour or so before Mom came back.

"I'm winning," he told her proudly, showing off his deck of cards.

"That's awesome. You should thank Nurse Sharon for playing with you."

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome. Thanks for being such a good sport."

"Can we go home now?" he asked.

"We sure can, kiddo."

Nick could feel the weight of imminent conversation the whole way home, but Mom didn't share the important stuff like Sharon said she would. They picked up Jake and Dawn from Red's on the way home because his mom had been watching them while Mom was at the hospital with Nick. Mom and Mrs. Hargrove often watched each other's kids when the other had to go somewhere where she couldn't bring them. It worked out perfectly because Nick and his siblings got to play with Red. He was jealous that Jake had gotten to play this time while Nick just had a stupid eye exam.

He still felt tired and nauseous from the medicine they'd given him, so he retreated to his room instead of eating dinner. Half an hour later, Mom sent Jake in to tell Nick to come into the living room so they could talk. Nick suspected this conversation had something to do with his eye, though he still had no idea why she was being so weird about it. Jake followed him into the living room, wanting to listen in.

"Jake, go back to your room," Mom prompted.

"But I wanna hear what this is about," he complained.

"You and I will have our own chat later. For now, this is between me and Nick."

"But Dawn gets to listen." He pointed out the baby sitting up on her blanket in the middle of the room. She giggled at him.

"She's not nosy like you are," Mom said with a smile. "Now go to your room."

"Fine," he grumbled.

Nick sat down next to Dawn and helped her stack her plastic rings. "What's going on?" he asked Mom. "What did they find in my eye?"

Mom sighed, seemingly scrambling to find the right words. "They found a tumor."

"What's that?"

"It's a growth of cells that aren't normal."

"Is that why I can't see out of it?"

"Yes, Nick."

"Good. That means they figured it out," he said confidently.

She took another deep breath. The smile disappeared from Dawn's face as she seemed to sense Mom's distress. Nick frowned too, unsure why Mom was so freaked out about this. "Nick, the growth in your eye is cancerous. And it's going to keep spreading if we don't do something to stop it."

He knew vaguely what the word cancerous meant, but he never thought it would be applied to him. Cancer was something that happened to old people. "What can we do to stop it?" he asked.

"They're going to do surgery and remove your eye," Mom explained.

"What?"

"Because the tumor is so big and you have so little vision left, the best option is to take it out before it spreads any further."

"Why can't they just take out the tumor part?"

"It's too big, Nick. If they try to just take that part out, there won't be hardly any healthy tissue left."

"But I like my eyes. I'd like to keep them," he insisted. Nick realized he was anxiously twirling one of the rings in his hands and Dawn had been reaching to take it from him for the past minute or so. She was right on the threshold of crying because he wouldn't relinquish it to her, so he dropped it and put his hands in his lap instead.

"I know, but they're only going to take out the bad eye. You'll still have one good one left."

Between the information Mom presented and the genuine fear in her tone, Nick understood that this tumor in his eye was dangerous. It terrified him to know that something so scary was right there in his face. He resigned himself to the fact that it needed to come out. "Is it going to hurt?" he asked, trying to disguise the quaver in his voice.

"No," she assured. "You'll be asleep and they'll give you medicine to make sure it doesn't hurt."

"Okay."

Relief immediately washed over her face and Nick forced a smile. Dawn smacked him in the knee with one of the rings, demanding his attention. Nick looked at her with both of his eyes. He closed each of them one at a time, watching his vision blur out completely when he closed the good eye and then clear up when he closed the other. He'd much rather see the world through his good eye.

~0~

"Mom said you're going to lose your eye," Jake told him the next day after she'd tucked them both in for the night. Evidently, she'd had a separate conversation with him after informing Nick of his future.

"Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

"Not really. It's just going to be like winking forever," Nick reasoned.

Jake giggled. "You're really not scared? It sounds scary."

"I guess so. Mom said it wouldn't hurt, and I don't think she was lying."

"Why would she lie about that?"

"I don't know."

"Are you going to wear an eyepatch like a pirate?" Jake asked, voice suddenly filled with wonder.

"Maybe. I think I have to wear bandages at least for the first few days, but maybe after that."

"That's so cool."

Only two years separated Nick from Jake, but the younger Fury maintained much more childlike innocence than the elder. Either they possessed a fundamental personality difference, or maybe kindergarten just hardened people like that. Nick didn't think wearing an eyepatch because he had a cancerous eyeball cut out of his head was particularly cool. Then again, it was easier for Jake to think that because it wasn't happening to him. He wasn't the one about to lose something so vital. Nick wondered what he would think if he found out that Jake or Dawn had to lose an eye. In all honesty, he'd probably wish it was him instead. As the big brother in a household without a father, he was supposed to look out for his little siblings, and he definitely wouldn't like it if something so scary happened to one of them and he couldn't do anything to fix it. Hopefully, he'd never have to worry about something like this ever happening to either of them.


	2. Aye Aye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In true Marvel fashion, I have decided to make 2 trailers for the sequel. I will be posting the first of the two as a fifth chapter to this story at the same time as I post chapter 4. I look forward to hearing what you all think is going on based on the snippets I show you :)

They dropped Jake and Dawn off at Mrs. Hargrove's and Nick got a chance to talk to Red briefly before heading to the hospital. His best friend wished him luck and made him promise to show him pictures, but only if it looked gross. But both Mom and Mrs. Hargrove vetoed that. The Gravesen building was enormous, and they almost got lost on their way to outpatient surgery. Fortunately, they found their way in a short enough time that they weren't late checking in. It wouldn't have mattered even if they did, because the OR was two hours behind schedule for whatever reason.

Nick hadn't eaten since last night and wasn't allowed to until after his surgery, and this new delay only magnified his grumpiness. Mom tried to distract him, but even her best efforts failed miserably. Sharon, the kind nurse who had played war with him last time he was here, paid him a visit and offered to take a walk with him. Nick desperately wanted to do something other than sit and wait, so he agreed, first glancing to Mom for confirmation. She nodded, so Nick took Sharon's hand and they headed for the elevators.

"Where are we going?" Nick asked.

"We're going to visit where I work most days," she explained.

"Where's that?"

"The pediatric residential ward. It's where kids who have to be here a while stay."

"Are there any kids there right now?"

"Yes."

"Do I get to meet them?"

"Maybe. I don't know exactly what they're up to right now, but if we run into them I'll introduce you."

"Okay."

They arrived on a different floor of the hospital, this one containing a central desk where nurses bustled about and a few hallways branching off. Sharon led him down one with lots of numbered doors on each side until they reached a bright room filled with sofas, chairs, cabinets, and toys. Two young boys with no hair sat playing a card game.

"Go fish," one of them said.

The other boy picked up a card and added it to his hand. He glanced up and caught a glimpse of Nick and Sharon. "Hi!" he chirped.

"Hi," Nick said back shyly.

"This is Nick," Sharon introduced.

"I'm Clint," the first boy said.

"And I'm Scott. It's nice to meet you," the second added.

"Are you a new neighbor?" Clint asked.

"No."

"Do you want to play with us?" Scott offered.

"Sure."

On his way over, Nick waved hello to the woman sitting on the couch with a magazine, probably one of the boys' mothers. Sharon stepped out, promising to return and fetch Nick when it was time. Scott and Clint stopped their current game, collected all the cards, and reshuffled them. When Nick played cards with Jake and Mom, she shuffled them by splitting the deck in two and flipping them together with her thumbs. Scott's idea of shuffling was to spread them all out on the floor and push them around in one big messy pile. It took a lot longer, but he evidently had fun with it. Besides, shuffling the other way was really hard.

"If you're not a new neighbor, what are you doing here?" Clint inquired.

"I'm having surgery to remove my eye."

"What's wrong with it?" Scott asked.

"It has cancer."

"Us too!" they chimed in unison. "But it's not in my eye," Scott added.

"Where is it?" Nick asked.

"Pretty much everywhere else."

"Everywhere?"

"Well, it started in my tummy, but then it spread."

"Yikes."

"Yes yikes. After your surgery, do you have to do chemo too?"

"I don't think so," Nick said. Neither his mom nor any of the doctors had mentioned it.

"Lucky," Clint huffed. Nick never once thought his losing an eye could be considered lucky, but these boys offered a completely new perspective. Apparently some kinds of cancer could be worse than others. All of a sudden losing an eye didn't seem so bad. They played go fish for the next half an hour, only stopping when Sharon returned to take Nick back to his mother.

"Good luck with your surgery," Scott said sweetly.

"Thanks. Good luck to you guys too," Nick replied. He and Sharon walked back to his room, where Mom was waiting.

"Did you have fun?" she asked.

"Yeah. I met some other kids who have cancer."

"That's nice. Are you ready to go?"

Nick hesitated, but said, "Yes." Once he fell asleep it would all be over, and he knew from the last time he'd been put to sleep how quick and easy it was.

"Can I keep my eyeball after you take it out?" he asked the surgeon as the anesthesiologist got everything set up.

He chuckled, and so did Mom, but they both simultaneously forbid it. "You are not bringing an eyeball into our house," she said sternly.

"Fine," he grumbled. "You'll be there when I wake up?"

"Of course." The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was her face gazing lovingly down at him.

~0~

Nick awoke with a mild headache and a bandage covering almost the entire left side of his face. It exerted pressure on his swollen eyelid, which was annoying more so than painful, but he already looked forward to taking it off. "Hey there," Mom greeted.

"Hi," he mumbled back.

"Everything went great. We get to go home soon."

"Sounds good."

"Can I get you anything?"

He shook his head, which aggravated the headache just enough to be noticeable. A little while later, the surgeon paid them a visit to discuss next steps and what to expect. Nick listened as attentively as possible despite the sleepiness still clinging to his mind. He'd removed Nick's eyeball and replaced it with an implant, attaching all the muscles and covering it with a layer of tissue from around his eye. On top, he placed a temporary prosthesis called a conformer to maintain the shape of his eye socket, which he explained looked, "Just like a big contact lens." That would stay in for two months until he healed enough to receive a real prosthetic to match his good eye. His eyelid was stitched closed beneath the bandage and would remain so for about a week until they dissolved. The pressure bandage also had to stay on for a week to reduce swelling until his follow-up visit.

Dr. Potts arrived not long after the surgeon left to discuss the results of his bloodwork. The type of cancer Nick had was called retinoblastoma, and sometimes it had genetic causes. His bloodwork revealed that he did have a hereditary form, which meant two things. Firstly, that they had to be extra vigilant with his follow-up scans because his odds of relapse were significantly higher than someone with a non-heritable form. And secondly, that his siblings should both be checked for the gene.

Nick heard Mom mutter under her breath, "Of course the one thing he helped me give our children is a cancer gene." She probably hadn't meant for him to hear that, but he did. And he knew she was talking about Dad. He'd left over a year ago, when Mom was still pregnant with Dawn, without so much as a goodbye or a note. Just disappeared. Jake didn't even remember him. Nick did, but not much. Even before he left, he was never really around. He couldn't tell if Mom missed him or not. In all likelihood it was a little bit of both.

After one final check-up, they discharged him with instructions for pain management and an appointment for a follow-up in one week. Mom took him home and tucked him in and post-anesthesia drowsiness dragged him under within a few minutes. He awoke to the sound of his sister crying. Mrs. Hargrove must have dropped them off during his nap. That meant Jake was around here somewhere too. Nick stepped out of bed and wandered into the kitchen where Mom was feeding Dawn a bottle.

"How're you feeling?" she asked.

"My head hurts," he admitted.

"You can have some medicine for it if you want." She let Dawn take the bottle in her own hands and pulled out the bottle of Tylenol. Nick knew how to open it because Mom's hands were so often full. Besides the headache, he could also feel an aching tug in his eye whenever he looked around. Not only did it hurt, it freaked him out a little to know the implant was moving around.

"Where's Jake?" he asked. Just as the words left his mouth, he heard the toilet flush and a minute or so later his brother came into the kitchen. His eyes widened when he caught sight of Nick, but he quickly replaced the look of shock with a smile.

"I missed you. Playing with Red without you isn't as fun," he stated.

"Missed you too," Nick said with a yawn. Without warning, Jake barreled into him for a hug.

"Be gentle," Mom reminded him. Nick returned the embrace awkwardly, unused to offering this sort of affection. He and his brother weren't touchy-feely like this. "Hey Nick, I have a question for you."

"What?"

"Have you ever heard of Make-a-Wish?"

"I have!" Jake chimed in. "It's what you do on your birthday. Or when you throw a coin in a well!"

"That's right, but there's an organization called Make-a-Wish that grants kids with different illnesses their wish. While I was at the hospital, one of the workers there told me that you might qualify. I looked into it, and you do!"

"I get to make a wish?" Nick confirmed.

"Yes. You can pick anything you want to do and they'll make it happen."

"Anything?"

"Well, there are limits, of course. But I have a feeling those limits are beyond anything you could imagine. Do you have any idea what you want to do?"

"Sounds like an important decision."

"It is. If you want, I can help you pick. We can look on their website and see the sorts of things other kids do."

"Can I help?" Jake asked eagerly.

"Sure," Nick conceded. Trying to keep him out of the decision would be more effort than it was worth. He hadn't paused to consider that anything good could come out of this, beyond getting rid of the cancer in his eye, so learning that he got something special out of it was a welcome surprise. "Can we get a cat?" he asked, speaking the first wish that came to mind. He'd requested one for his birthday and Christmas every year that he could remember.

"No, we cannot get a cat. And you need to think bigger."

"A tiger?"

"No. Definite no."

"Can we go to Disney World?" Jake asked.

"Jake, this is Nick's decision."

"But he said I could help."

"You can _help_ , but you cannot decide for him," she said sternly. Nick had never been in such a position of power before. He loved it. Most of the time, he and Jake shared decision-making equally. They had to agree on which movie to watch, what to eat for dinner, or what game to play. This time, he could overrule his little brother's opinion if he so desired. However, now that Jake mentioned it, Nick couldn't stop thinking about how fun it sounded. None of them had ever been to Disney.

"I like that idea," Nick admitted.

"Okay. You have some time to think about it. We're not doing anything crazy until you're all healed up."

"How long is that gonna be?"

"You can get your prosthetic eye in about two months."

"That's so long!"

"I know. But it'll be over before you know it."

Nick crossed his arms with a huff. "I don't have to keep this on that whole time, do I?" he asked, indicating the uncomfortable pressure bandage across his face.

"No. That comes off in a week. Until then, leave it alone." She batted his hand away from his cheek where he'd been scratching at the edge of it.

"If this comes off in a week, but I don't get a fake eye for two months, what's it going to look like in between?"

She hesitated. "I'm not sure."

"Is it gonna be scary?" Jake asked.

"I hope so," Nick teased him. He didn't have to look at it except in the mirror, but everyone else would have to see it all the time. There was another good thing that came out of this: freaking his little brother out.

"You'll get used to it," Mom assured. "And the prosthetic will match his real eye, so you won't even notice the difference."

"Cool," Jake remarked.

~0~

His eye stopped hurting after two days, but he still hated the bandage. And moving his eyes around still felt weird, like his left eye was tired or something. He had to be super careful not to get it wet when taking a bath, which was annoying. Needless to say, he was elated when they went back to Gravesen to have it removed and his eye socket checked.

Nick cooperated as the surgeon pulled it off, though his eyelid was slow to open after being sewn shut for a week. He spent several minutes examining the socket thoroughly, and Nick turned his good eye away because it was awkward to look at his face so close up. "It's looking great," the surgeon announced. Nick heard Mom sigh. "Still a bit swollen, but that's to be expected this early on. It'll go down more over the next few weeks."

He gave them the green light and high-fived Nick for being so patient. Mom spent a long time talking to one of the receptionists to schedule his two-month follow-up and appointment with an ocularist to eventually get fitted for his prosthetic. By the time they got to go home, Nick was so bored he thought he might fall asleep standing up. "Can I see it?" he asked Mom.

"See what?"

"My eye."

"Are you sure you want to?"

"Yes."

"Okay." She passed him a handheld mirror that she kept in her purse. Nick held it up to his face and gazed at his left eye socket. It completely grossed him out, but he couldn't look away. His eyelid drooped a bit, partially obscuring the empty pink hole where his eyeball once sat.

Nick handed the mirror back to Mom. "Cool."

"You think it's cool?"

"Yeah."

He continued thinking it was cool, right up until they picked up Dawn and Jake from Mrs. Hargrove's. Both of them burst into tears at the sight of him. Nick turned his gaze to the ground, angry at himself for upsetting them. Mom took nearly twenty minutes to calm them down. He held himself together until they got back home, then it was Nick's turn to cry. The tear duct in his bad eye remained fully functional, and he made good use of it.

"Nick, it's okay. It was their first time seeing it, they're just a little startled."

"But everyone who sees me will be like that. I don't want to scare all the kids at school."

"You won't. How about we get you an eyepatch, just until you're ready for a prosthetic?"

"Like a pirate?"

"Exactly like a pirate."

"Aye aye."


	3. Three-Eyed Crocodile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Screw it, I'm starting three-times-a-week updates now. I have only the epilogue left to write before the sequel is completely finished. There's no chance I'll catch up to myself and you guys deserve more frequent updates after sticking with this series so long. Enjoy :)

The plain black eyepatch suited him, Nick thought. It gave him a certain air of menace and mystery, in addition to accomplishing the very necessary job of covering his eyeless socket. Plus, it lent a new level of authenticity to the game whenever he and Jake played pirates. Despite his initial reaction, Jake had grown used to Nick's appearance and now didn't so much as bat an eye when he saw him without the patch. Nick wore it pretty much nonstop, taking it off only to bathe and sleep, and it became such a constant in his wardrobe that forgetting it felt like forgetting underwear.

The kids at school stared at him the first time he wore it, but they quickly got over themselves. Nick initially feared he'd get made fun of, but nobody ever said anything to him about it except his best friend Red. Although, he didn't tease him about it, he pestered him about a different aspect of the missing eye.

"Please let me see it," he begged for the tenth time that day. Nick had ignored his every request to see under the patch, afraid of how he'd react.

"No," Nick repeated.

"Please!"

"I said no."

"Why not?"

"It's gross. You don't want to see it."

"That's exactly the reason I _do_ want to see it."

They'd had this exact same conversation multiple times already, and Nick was getting fed up with it. Clearly Red wasn't going to drop the issue anytime soon, so Nick relented and gave him what he wanted. He looked Red dead in the eyes and flipped the patch up to his forehead, revealing his bad eye. Red's face displayed a combination of fascination and shock. Nick replaced the patch. "See? Not that exciting."

"I think it's cool," Red said.

Nick smiled. "Me too."

Wearing the eyepatch was an easy adjustment to make. The real difficulty was learning how to cope with his altered vision. In the first week, he spent a lot of time knocking things over because he reached for them too quickly without being able to accurately tell how far away they were. After the third instance of water all over the table, Mom switched him over to sippy cups until he could prove himself capable of keeping them upright.

He also now had a blind side. The lack of a left eye greatly reduced his peripheral vision. Whenever they went in public, Jake took to walking on that side to make it less likely Nick would bump into someone he couldn't see. At their kitchen table, he normally sat to Mom's right, but he now found that in order to see her when talking to her at dinner he had to turn his head almost completely to the side. It was annoying. To fix this, he switched to the head of the table. Sitting there not only enabled him to see his entire family without straining, it also made him feel like the man of the house. Nick enjoyed this particular adjustment.

~0~

By the time two months from his surgery arrived, it was late summer. This time, instead of staying at Mrs. Hargrove's, Jake and Dawn accompanied Nick and Mom. They first followed up with his surgeon to ensure the socket had healed satisfactorily. He popped out the conformer and looked everything over with the same thoroughness as last time. Once given the all clear, they headed to the ocularist. Nick was fascinated by the prospect that they could build him a fake eye that looked just like his real one. He was, on the other hand, not so much fascinated but terrified of the syringe full of green paste they told him they'd be squirting into his eye socket.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to put things in my eyes," he stated, crossing his arms.

"It's perfectly safe," he assured. His ocularist was a young man named Mr. Summers. Nick wanted to trust him, but it was difficult to do so when their first interaction was Mr. Summers attempting to pump a mysterious substance into his face.

"Is it gonna hurt?" Nick asked.

"Nope," Mr. Summers promised. "It might feel cold, but it won't hurt and it's not going to damage anything."

"Okay. Not like I can see out of this eye anyway," he grumbled. Mr. Summers chuckled. He came a little closer and positioned the syringe in front of Nick's face. Reflexively, he slammed his eyelids shut and flinched away.

"Have you ever had eye drops before?" Mr. Summers asked. Nick nodded. They'd used those to dilate his eyes at the doctor before they found his tumor. He'd hated every second of it. "This is just like that." Nick swallowed nervously, but nodded again. Without a word, Jake stepped up on his good side and took his hand with a reassuring squeeze. Nick squeezed back and stared resolutely at the ceiling. Mr. Summers approached again, slowly this time, and Nick managed to keep his eye open long enough for him to empty the syringe into it. It felt weirder than anything he'd ever experienced, the cold sensation reaching places that had never felt such a thing before. The paste stayed in for a full minute while it dried in the shape of his eye socket, and then Mr. Summers simply pulled it out. And just like that, it was over.

"Great job," he commended. "This is what your eye socket is shaped like." He held up the mold. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Nick said genuinely. Mr. Summers set the mold aside and explained his next step: painting an exact copy of Nick's iris. "What do I have to do?" Nick asked.

"Just stare at me for an awkwardly long time."

Nick smiled. "I can do that."

Mr. Summers produced paint and brushes much like those from the art boxes at Nick's school. The artificial iris was small, and Nick marveled at how skilled this man must be to paint that level of detail on something so tiny. "How did you come into this field of work?" Mom asked him.

"I spent my entire life going to ocularist appointments, and I just thought it was the coolest job in the world."

"You have a fake eye too?" Nick asked. If he needed an ocularist his whole life, that was the only possible explanation.

"Yep, this one." He pointed to his right eye. "I was born without it. I actually painted this one myself."

"It looks so real. I couldn't even tell," Nick said.

"Yeah, well that's the idea. Yours is going to look that real too."

"Wow."

"What happened to your eye?" Mr. Summers asked casually.

"Cancer."

"Yikes. I'm sorry to hear that. Did you beat it?"

"Yeah," he said confidently.

"That's awesome. How's life with one eye been so far?"

"Not that bad. It was a little weird figuring out how far away things were, but I've gotten pretty good at it."

"Are the kids at school chill?"

"Yeah. They barely even notice anymore. In fact, they'll probably think it's weird when I show up next year with two normal-looking eyes."

"I'm glad to hear it. When I was little and went to school without my eye in, some of the other kids called me Cyclops."

"That's not very nice."

"No, it's not. I'm glad you have better classmates than I did."

"There are worse things to be than a Cyclops," Nick pointed out. "At least you don't look like Medusa."

"That's very true. I'll think about that next time someone uses that nickname."

Painting the eye took over an hour, but Nick enjoyed talking to Mr. Summers so much that he barely noticed the time passing. They made their next appointment for the following week to sculpt the prosthesis and make sure it fit comfortably in his eye socket. Nick found he couldn't wait to go back.

When they arrived home, Mom once again brought up the subject of the Make-a-Wish trip. Nick had thought about it occasionally since she first mentioned it, and he'd yet to come up with something that sounded more fun than what Jake suggested. So, when she asked, he told her he wanted to go to Disney World. He especially wanted to experience the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Last time he saw him, Nick asked Red about the best things at Disney since his family went almost every year, and he cited that one as his favorite. Plus, even though Mom said this was his decision, he didn't want to pick something that Jake would hate. He wanted all of them to have fun.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Mom asked.

"Yes," he avowed.

"Okay. I'm going to talk to the people and see if we can schedule this for the end of the summer. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

~0~

The next time he saw Mr. Summers, he tested the fit of his eye in the socket over and over again, asking him really specific questions about how comfortable it was and where. Nick did his best to answer, but frankly having an eye in at all felt weird no matter how perfectly it was shaped. The time after that, they taught him and Mom how to put it in and take it out.

"It's not that different from putting in a contact lens," Mr. Summers explained.

"I've never done that either," Nick said.

"You'll get the hang of it. It's not something you should have to do very often, but you should definitely make sure you know how."

Mom got the hang of it after three or four tries, but Nick took a little longer since he couldn't see what he was doing and had to get it in by feel alone. Mr. Summers was satisfied with the look and fit, so he deemed Nick ready to take the eye home. After spending two months in the eye patch, Nick barely recognized himself with two normal-looking eyes. The prosthetic was so lifelike that he couldn't even tell it was fake. Mom said it didn't move as much as his other eye, but he couldn't see that by looking in a mirror. It looked like nothing happened at all. Nick liked it, but he found he almost missed the eyepatch. His head felt bare without it. Which is why he packed it in a little pocket of his suitcase for their Wish trip to Disney.

The Make-a-Wish people didn't mess around when it came to planning a trip. Mom didn't have to do anything except pack their luggage. Nick snagged the window seat on the plane, and Jake took the middle. Neither of them had ever flown before, so they sat staring out the window at the busy tarmac around them and nearly bounced out of their seats with excitement when they started speeding up for takeoff.

While they ascended into the clouds, Jake remarked, "We're so lucky you had cancer."

Nick's thoughts halted at this statement. What a horrible thing to say, frankly. Maybe Jake thought he was lucky because he got to tag along on this trip, but he didn't have to suffer through losing an eyeball. Then again, would he have thought the same thing if it was Jake who had cancer and Nick who got to join in on the silver lining? Maybe. Pondering over it wasn't worth Nick's time, not when he was up in the clouds with a view like this. New York City looked tiny from all the way up here.

The flight itself was rather boring once they got high enough that he couldn't see anything below, but the trip itself more than made up for those few hours. They got to stay in the Give Kids the World Village, an entire town of special houses just for Wish kids and their families. It looked like a fairy tale come to life, with a giant mushroom merry-go-round, an enormous sleepy tree, and brightly colored buildings. But the most magical part of it all was the castle.

Nick and his family walked in and were immediately entranced by the thousands upon thousands of gold stars on the walls and ceiling. Each one represented a wish kid. One of the rooms twisted up into a massive tower, with stars in concentric circles littering the dome above. Nick wished he still had two eyes so he could see more of it at once. He got to fill out his own star with his name and watched them place it in its own special place on the wall.

"You can always come back here to find your star again," they told him. Nick thought he just might. He thought the trip couldn't get any more incredible than it already was, but he was mistaken. They had special passes so they didn't have to wait in any long lines. It was the best, as he and Jake continually repeated. The two of them loved the Pirates of the Caribbean ride so much that they spent nearly an hour and half just doing it over and over again. Nick had practically memorized it by the time Mom finally convinced them to move on.

Dawn kept her fussing to a minimum, Nick and Jake avoided arguing, and even the weather wasn't as despicably hot as it could've been for a Florida summer. Between that, the lack of lines, and the Make-a-Wish magic ensuring they got to meet all the costumed characters they wanted, it was the perfect trip. Until Nick lost his eye.

They'd spent the day in Animal Kingdom, marveling over all the different animals that they'd never seen in real life before. "How come we've never been to the zoo back home?" Nick asked Mom.

"You never asked to go," was her answer.

"I'll bet this is better."

"You're probably right."

They stood on the bridge above the crocodile habitat. Mom had Jake's hand in hers because the kid was so damn excited she was afraid he'd vault over the railing to go swimming. Nick stared in awe at the massive reptiles beneath them. He'd known crocodiles were big, but not _this_ big. One of them could probably swallow him whole.

A mosquito flew past his face, so close it nearly landed on his cheek. It happened again, and this time Nick swore he felt the bug land on his eye. He rubbed at it a few times, but jerked his hand away from his face when he felt something shift. The prosthetic eye came out of the socket, plinked once on the bridge beneath his feet, and disappeared off the edge. Nick gasped and stared down at the water below, but he didn't even catch the splash.

"We have a situation," he announced.

"What's wrong?" Mom asked. Instead of answering, Nick just looked at her. Her eyes widened when she saw what had happened, and Nick was terrified she'd be furious with him. "Where'd your eye go?"

"I just rubbed it for two seconds, and it fell out!"

"I think a crocodile ate it," Jake said.

"Really?" Nick asked eagerly. He glanced back over the edge, but he didn't know where the eye had landed and therefore couldn't tell if a crocodile's mouth now occupied the same position.

"Nick, you've had it for barely a few weeks and you already lost it?" Mom said despairingly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't purposely take it out. It just fell."

"Okay. Maybe we can try to get it back?"

"I'm not putting it back in my face now that it's been in croc water. That's gross."

"We can get it cleaned."

"Who's going to go swimming in there to look for it?"

"We can ask one of the keepers."

"It's no big deal. I packed my eyepatch. I can just wear that."

"You packed that?"

"Yeah. Just in case."

"Well it's a good thing you did because I didn't want to explain to anyone here that you dropped your eye into the crocodile habitat."

"If you'd dropped a clock, then one of those guys would be Tick Tock Croc!" Jake exclaimed.

"Well, it's not a clock. So I guess he's just a three-eyed crocodile."

They did not ultimately ask for help retrieving the eye. Since Nick had his patch with him, it wasn't as imperative that he get it back. He wore the plain black eyepatch for the rest of the trip and didn't mind one bit. However, Mom forbade a return to the crocodile habitat in case he decided to scratch his head and lose the patch too. Nick got the feeling this would either be a story they told for years to come, or an incident they never mentioned again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can't believe I wrote this chapter. How did Nick Motherfucking Fury's prequel end up being the ridiculous one?


	4. A Blind Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick Fury is canonically from Hell's Kitchen...you know what that means?

Mom was furious. Not with Nick or Jake, but with their insurance. Apparently they wouldn't cover a replacement eye. Nick could hear her practically shouting at the person on the phone all the way from his room, through a closed door. "How long do you think she's gonna go on?" Jake asked.

"I don't know," Nick sighed. He didn't enjoy listening to Mom argue on the phone, especially about this. Frankly, he didn't care if he got a new eye or not; he was perfectly content just to wear the patch for the foreseeable future. They listened to her argue for another twenty minutes before she finally hung up in defeat. She knocked on their door and asked Nick what he wished she'd asked before going through all that trouble.

"Nick, it looks like we're not going to be able to get you a new eye. Are you going to be okay without it?"

"Yeah. It's not like it helps me see," he pointed out.

"You're right." She sat down beside him on the edge of his bed. "Have I told you yet how proud I am of you for being so mature through this whole thing?"

"No."

"Well I'm telling you now."

"Thanks," he said with a shrug.

"I mean it. You're a real trooper."

"I just roll with the punches."

"I love you."

"Love you too."

~0~

Nick had his first check-up MRI about six months after his surgery. They would scan him every six months for the next several years, and then if he remained cancer free drop back to once a year for the rest of his life. Because he had the gene known to cause retinoblastoma, he was at higher risk for relapse. Fortunately, neither Jake nor Dawn had the gene when they got tested. Nick understood how bad it would be if his cancer came back, having only one remaining eye, so he got scared right alongside his mother when it came time for scans.

They offered to sedate him like they'd done last time, but Nick declined. He wanted to prove he was brave enough to do it awake. When they put him in the machine and warned him not to move, he almost lost it, managing to prevent himself from fearfully backing out by only the barest of margins. The entire time, he regretted not letting them just put him to sleep, until the very end. Now that it was over, he was proud of himself for doing it, and glad he didn't feel woozy for the rest of the day from the medicine.

Those MRIs became their markers for the passage of time, happening every six months almost down to the day. Nick remained cancer free, thankfully, but the fear of recurrence was always present. For the most part, Nick didn't think about it, but one incident three years after his diagnosis forced it to the forefront of his mind.

"Did you hear what happened to Matthew?" Red asked him at lunch one day.

Nick had noticed their classmate's absence today, but he hadn't thought anything of it. He'd just assumed he caught a bug or something. Based on the fascination in Red's tone, that wasn't the case. "No. What happened?"

"There was a huge accident," Red explained. "A truck carrying some chemicals crashed, and he pushed some old man out of the way. But the chemical spill got in his eyes."

"Where'd you hear this?"

"It was on the news. My mom was watching it like she does every night, and she called me in because she recognized his name."

"Wow. That's insane," Nick remarked. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Besides the chemicals, he didn't have any bad injuries."

"What kind of chemicals?"

"I don't remember. I think they said it, but it was some sciency word I can't remember."

"I hope he's okay."

"Yeah, me too. If it was me, I would've just let the old man take the brunt of it."

Nick snickered, though he couldn't really decide how he would've acted in that moment. It was easy to say he would've chosen the heroic route and saved the old man, or to joke about letting him get hit, but there was no way to know what his instinct would tell him if he actually found himself in that situation. And he really hoped that never happened.

For the next week, his classmates could talk about nothing but Matthew. The boy's continued absence from school only fueled his fame as people speculated about the extent of his injuries. Even Nick hadn't garnered this much attention when he'd returned to school missing an eye. Or maybe his peers just succeeded in avoiding gossiping when he was within earshot. Without Matthew here, nobody had any reservations with talking about him.

"Maybe the chemicals leaked into his brain and put him in a coma or something," one kid said at lunch. Nick and Red exchanged a glance and rolled their eyes at the sheer absurdity of such a theory. It was almost funny how obsessed the entire school was with Matthew's accident. Nothing this interesting ever happened here, so everyone was eager to finally have something to talk about. Things got even more interesting when Matthew returned nearly three weeks later with an aide and a white cane.

A hush fell over the school; all discussion ceased immediately now that the subject of all the rumors might overhear. However, nobody was afraid to stare at him with morbid fascination because he couldn't see them back. Though Nick liked to consider himself above the childish obsession with anything new or different that his classmates displayed, he couldn't help his interest in poor Matthew. Every time he saw the kid around—which was often, since they were in the same class—he couldn't help but wonder, "Could that be me one day?"

The thought terrified him. Losing the one eye had been bad enough, but it would pale in comparison to the lifestyle change that losing the other one would bring about. Now that he was older, he understood even more about the disease that struck down his first eye. He carried a gene that made it more likely for his cancer to come back. And without one eye, there was only one place left for it to reappear. He'd made it three years without a recurrence, which was a good sign, but would still need scans for the rest of his life to ensure it stayed that way. The odds decreased with each passing year, but never enough for them to stop checking.

He hadn't thought about cancer much since it happened, except right before his twice-yearly scans, but watching Matthew navigate without eyesight every day forced him to consider that possible future for himself. And it really, really scared him. "Mom, you heard about Matthew, right?" Nick asked after she finished tucking Dawn and Jake in for the night. As the oldest, he got to stay up just a bit longer, which meant for about half an hour he got Mom all to himself.

"Yes, I did, poor kid. You're being nice to him at school, right?"

"I'm not making fun of him, if that's what you mean."

"You can do better than that," she encouraged.

"I never really talked to him before the accident. It'd be weird if I started now."

"Why?"

"It's just weird to start talking to someone randomly like that. Besides, it's not like he doesn't have friends."

"Okay. Is there another reason you brought him up?"

Of course Mom could tell there was something else on his mind. Nick shrugged, unsure if sharing this thought would even help. After a few moments he decided it was better to get it off his chest than to sit with it alone any longer. "I'm scared that I'm going to be the next Matthew."

"Nick, I'm so sorry I didn't think to talk to you about this sooner. That would be super scary. That's why you get scans so often, so if the cancer comes back we'll know and we can kill it before it gets too big."

"But what if that doesn't work and they do have to take it out?"

"Then you'll adjust, exactly like Matthew's doing right now."

"I don't want to adjust to being blind!" He couldn't help the panicked rise in his voice.

"Shhh, you'll wake your siblings. Nick, the odds are you probably won't have to. But if by some chance you do, then you will. Because you won't have a choice."

He hung his head at that last remark, but he understood its truthfulness. Nick had no control over whether or not he remained cancer free for the rest of his life, so there was little point in fretting over it. Mom was right, as usual. "Thanks," he muttered.

"You're welcome. Now off to bed with you."

"Okay." When he closed his eyes, he imagined what it would be like to live the rest of his life in darkness. It certainly left a lot more to the imagination. But it was almost peaceful, in a way, any visual distractions now eliminated. Nick thought it would be a lot easier to get lost in his thoughts, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Still, he enjoyed things like watching TV and being able to read instructions for how to build an IKEA bookcase or cook a casserole. Those last two weren't things he did often as a nine-year-old, but he understood how invaluable they were in real life. If given the choice, he'd much rather keep his vision. But, as Mom said, in situations like this, he really didn't have a choice.

~0~

Nick made it to five years cancer free around his eleventh birthday, so they decreased his scan frequency to once every year instead of every six months. They all thought he was in the clear. But then in January, they found it. By this point, Nick had stopped worrying about scans every time they happened, thinking it was little more than a formality. Neither he nor his mother were prepared to hear that his cancer had reappeared, both in his remaining eye and in some spots in his skull.

"It is unusual to see a recurrence this far out, but not impossible," Dr. Potts explained. "All we can do now is nip it in the bud before it spreads."

"And his eye?" Mom asked.

"We'll try to save it. I'm fairly confident since we caught this now we should be able to preserve it."

"And if we can't?" Nick said.

"We'll worry about that when we get to that point." Dr. Potts dismissed his concern so easily, but Nick was already very, very worried. Last time, his treatment had consisted of taking out an eye and little more. Now that he didn't have an eye to spare, what would they have to do? Nick soon found out, but that did little to assuage his nerves. He was going to need systemic chemo to take care of the spots in his skull, and something called intra-arterial to more directly target the tumor in his eye. Nick had never been more scared in his life. This was the exact eventuality he'd feared ever since he first found out that the weird white glare in his eye was a cancerous tumor.

"Are you gonna tell Jake and Dawn what's going on?" Nick asked on their way out of the hospital.

"I have to," Mom replied. "Do you want to do it with me, or do you want me to tell them for you?"

"I don't know." Dawn had been just a baby the first time he fought cancer, and she didn't remember any of it. Jake had been old enough to recall some of it, but neither he nor Nick had really understood the stakes. From what Nick understood now, looking back, if they'd caught it any later he might not have survived at all. Now they'd caught it relatively early, but there was still a chance none of this treatment would work at all. And even if it did, who's to say he wouldn't just relapse again another six years later?

"You have some time to think about it."

"But I start treatment next week. We have to tell them before then."

"Yes, we do. But it doesn't have to be today," Mom assured.

"Yes it does. I don't think I can look them in the eyes knowing that they don't know this super scary secret."

"Okay, then why don't we tell them when we get back? If you decide you'd rather not be there, you can leave and let me do the rest."

"Okay."

Mrs. Hargrove dropped them off about fifteen minutes after Nick and Mom returned from the appointment. They looked so innocent, assuming Nick had gotten clean results like he had consistently for the past six years. Nick hated to dash that hope, but he had to. "Jake, Dawn, we need to discuss something very important," Mom announced.

"Are you getting married?" Dawn asked eagerly.

"What? No. Where did you even get that idea?"

She shrugged. "We watched a movie where the single mom got married at the end."

"You don't need a wedding to have a happy ending," she said sternly. "This is a different kind of news."

"What's wrong?" Jake asked. He was perceptive enough to tell something was up, something not good.

Mom sighed. "Nick's scans show that his cancer is back."

"What?"

"They found more tumors."

"What…what's gonna happen?" Dawn asked. She stepped closer and wrapped her arms protectively around Nick's waist.

"He's going to do chemo to try and kill the cancer cells," she explained.

"What's that?" Jake asked. Understanding that this was going to be a much longer conversation, Mom took them all into the living room to sit down together. For the next half an hour, she and Nick answered the endless barrage of questions that the younger two Furies peppered them with. Dawn stayed uncomfortably close to Nick the whole time, practically burying herself in his side.

"What if they have to take out his eye?" she asked.

"Hopefully they won't," Nick said. "But if they do, then at least the cancer will be gone."

"But you can't see if you have no eyes!"

"You're right. I know that's really scary to think about, but first we're going to see if I can beat this without losing another eye."

"Okay."

Nick held it together up until his first chemo dose. They admitted him to the pediatric residential ward at Gravesen, and not long after sent him down to the clinic where they administered chemo. There was another boy a bit older than Nick occupying one of the armchairs, completely hairless and skinnier than he should've been. Nick nodded a greeting and allowed himself to be marched into the armchair opposite him.

"Welcome," the boy said shyly. "I'm Bucky."

"Hey," Nick said curtly. He was a little preoccupied with the nurse stabbing a needle into his arm. While he watched her set up the line, he occasionally glanced up to see Bucky eying him warily.

"What are you in for, if you don't mind me asking."

"Eye cancer. _Again_."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. I'm just really fucking pissed that cancer came for me again six years later." If the nurse didn't approve of his choice of word, she made no indication. Luckily Mom wasn't in the room to hear it, or she would've scolded him so hard he shrank two inches, which was ridiculous considering Nick had first learned the word from her. She was currently grabbing food with Jake and Dawn in the cafeteria.

"Six years. That's a long time."

"I know."

"You ready?" the nurse, Jane, asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Nick said.

"Not ready enough," Bucky grumbled. "First chemo is a gnarly one."

"I'm looking forward to getting it over with."

He held it together until Jane left. No medicine had even reached his veins yet, but being here with another clearly sick cancer kid made it feel all the more real. Once the tears started, there was no stopping them. Nick tore off his eyepatch and let them run freely down his face, all the terror at knowing his vision—and his life—were on the line this time catching up to him all at once.

"Hey, it's okay," Bucky tried. "Let it out."

Nick appreciated that he didn't try to placate him, tell him everything would turn out fine and this would all be over before he knew it. Bucky clearly knew this road and how unpleasant it was. He validated Nick's need to cry and rage about it, which was exactly what he needed to hear.

~0~

The pediatric ward was positively bustling with other sick kids, many of whom had cancer just like Nick. After he'd mostly recovered from that first dose, Bucky introduced him to Carol, Thor, Steve—who wasn't currently admitted, but was a regular patient here and an even more regular visitor—Natasha, Peter, and Clint. "Wait a minute, you look familiar," Clint said upon seeing Nick for the first time.

"You too," Nick said. He squinted and tried to remember the last time he'd seen this kid. Then, it came to him. "I played cards with you here before my surgery!"

"That's right!"

"You're still here after all this time?"

"Yeah," Clint said sadly. Once again, Nick recognized just how lucky he was. He'd drawn a better cancer card than this kid. But he wondered what happened to the other boy they'd played with.

"Where's the other kid who was there with us?"

"He's dead."

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah. He died a long time ago." The mood darkened significantly. To break the awkward silence, Clint asked, "Has Carol introduced you to the gauntlet yet?"

"No. What's that?"

"Let's go find her. She's better at explaining it than I am."

They set off down the hallway to a room a few doors down and across the hall from Nick's own. Clint knocked, and Carol answered within seconds. "What's up?"

"Nick needs to be on the gauntlet."

"Yes, he does." They returned to the common room, where she showed him the colorful poster on the wall. Several names already adorned it, with their Xs stuck in various columns. Nick went down the list, deciding where his own aspects lay as he went. "Well, my reality has been distorted for almost as long as I can remember. Monocular vision will do that."

"What's that?" Clint asked, closing in on Nick's blind side quickly enough to make him jump.

"Only seeing with one eye."

"Oh. That makes sense."

Nick finished placing them, and Carol announced, "Welcome to Gravesen."

"How messed up is it that a hospital has 'grave' in its name? Did they not realize it when they picked it?" he asked.

"I have no idea. Either it's a dark-humored irony or it's just named after some important person."

"Personally I'd rather believe it's dark-humored irony."

"You and me both." Carol held up her hand, and Nick spectacularly missed the opportunity for a resounding high five.

"Sorry. Depth perception," he said sheepishly.

~0~

Chemo sucked. That much was indisputable. Spending time with Clint and Natasha in the clinic when their dose schedules aligned was just about the only part that didn't completely suck. Nick's hair fell out and he felt sick and gross most of the time. Every so often, he'd get a dose of intra-arterial chemo, which entailed being put to sleep so they could thread a catheter all the way up to the blood vessels around his eye and inject medicine into it. Those days were Nick's least favorite. However, the days when the residents got together in the common room for a movie or games nearly made up for that. He quickly learned the rules of Catan, which was easily the most popular game in the packed closet. School here was rather boring, but at least he had company most days in Peter, Natasha, or Clint. The latter two missed often for chemo doses, but Peter attended pretty consistently. But he was way smarter than Nick and bored with school, not because he didn't care about learning, but because it was too easy for him.

The day Carol died was another least favorite day. Watching Steve, Bucky, and Peter (whom everyone now called Parker) react was one of the hardest things Nick ever had to do. For the two weeks afterwards, grief hung heavily in all the halls on the ward. Steve joined them as a patient this time, and the week after that Tony arrived. After that, things really got interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time has come. From here, we venture to a little placed called TCMP. That's right, it's "They Call Me Parker" time! I can't believe we're already so far along in these prequels. It feels like just yesterday I was posting the first chapter of Plokhaya Krov. I know so many of you have been eagerly awaiting Parker's backstory, and I'm so excited to finally share it with you. But first, check out the next chapter of this story for a little preview of After Gravesen!


	5. After Gravesen Trailer #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here is the first "trailer" for After Gravesen! Fair warning, for the purpose of trailer some names of characters have been rewritten as just pronouns to avoid spoilers, so I cannot promise that the text you see here is exactly the same as the text in the actual story. I do have to preserve some of the secrets :)

"Gamora, set course for Tahiti!" The dog barked in excitement. Peter stepped up to the bow of the ship and stared out at the endless horizon. He listened to the cry of seagulls, the sound of Yondu grunting as he moved coils of rope into less hazardous places across the deck, and the eager barking of Gamora. Peter couldn't imagine a better crew to set sail with. Only one thing was missing. He popped belowdeck to see if Yondu had already packed the most crucial tool for any adventure. Peter found it tucked away in a cabinet and brought it back up. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the tape, popping it into the boom box.

"Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga. Ooga-chaka. Ooga-Ooga."

~0~

Now he was _really_ embodying Steve, giving tours to the newbies. Parker knew he wasn't nearly as good as the older boy, but he did his best. He showed her the classroom, kitchen, and of course the common room. She gazed around at it wondrously, and then her eyes fell on the gauntlet. Parker had never tried to explain it all on his own, but he really had no other choice. She didn't look at it long before she gasped like she'd just witnessed an epic plot twist in an action movie.

"What's wrong?" Parker asked.

"I didn't know this was the hospital where _she_ was," she whispered. He waited for her to elaborate, but she just stood there, one hand over her mouth, staring at the gauntlet. Parker tried to follow her sightline to determine which name she was looking at. The only 'she' anywhere near the top of the poster where her gaze fell was Carol.

"You know Carol?"

She nodded slowly.

~0~

"Arno?" another voice, a female voice Tony vaguely recognized but couldn't place. It nagged at the back of his mind, like the name of a celebrity he couldn't quite conjure. "Arno, did you run away to bother Daddy?" she asked.

"No Mommy!" he insisted. "I'm not bothering him."

"Come on back upstairs so Daddy can finish his work."

"Go along," Howard urged, a hand on his shoulder nudging him back towards the staircase.

"Okay. Bye Daddy."

~0~

"That was awesome! That was awesome!" he cheered, literally jumping up and down in excitement. "Way to use your head, Barnes! Or your foot, I suppose. Now _that's_ adaptive sports!"

~0~

He considered asking Mom beforehand, but he knew she would instantly say no and probably make him return to the backseat. Having seen people do this on TV countless times, he had a decent idea how it worked. As he approached the end of the lot this time he accelerated instead of hitting the brakes. Just as he reached the turn, he slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel.

"Nick!" Mom screamed. But it was too late. They were already drifting.

~0~

Natasha turned to Happy with a sly grin and said, "All done."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a lot to take in even with just six short snippets, so please fire away with your theories and predictions.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I am having way too much fun interweaving these stories and characters in this universe.


End file.
